Good question. On the contrary—I consider it super important to know the times tables (at least, for anyone who wants to be okay at mental math). In fact for lots of advanced mental math it’s important to have a very robust memory of times tables, and I give my students various drills to improve their recall.
But it’s crucial to consider how the times tables are structured in our memory. Rote memorization (“four times seven is twenty” etc.) is not helpful past a certain point because recall speed from that memory structure is inefficient. It would take many seconds to solve 483 × 7 if I had to keep scanning through the times tables. The same would apply if I used a memory palace for times tables of course.
Times tables is associative data, and therefore should be stored in a dictionary / map structure in our minds, not as a sequence. Or, if you do store it as a sequence, this should be only a temporary starter way of storing the information before it is stored associatively.
The last time I insulted a complete stranger and grown adult’s method of doing something over the World Wide Web (in a domain I have some expertise in) was on YouTube a couple years ago. It was about music
I have since deleted the comments.
I don’t know what rubs you the wrong way to such a point that you can’t just silently roll your eyes on your side of the internet, but that you felt the divine call to express in text that something i just explicitly said I did is the most “conspicuously bad” way that you can imagine going about this (translation is Merriem Websters, not mine).
But I suspect you have good reason.
When I was being trained and answering phone calls for the Suicide and Crisis Hotline, it was made explicitly clear that the reason folks lash out at others is because there is some area of their life where they perceive a painful lack of control.
This was my case with the YouTube comments. I had had some deaths and few other very frustrating life events that I won’t go into happen and I guess insulting the conclusion of a total stranger on the internet was a way of dealing with that.
Whatever you have going on in your life, I wish you well.
Your web resources are incredible. And, according to your profile it seems you live a both charmed and esteemed life. So, I think that’s superb and I absolutely cannot discount you as a valuable resource.
But I absolutely will not stick around a forum on the internet where folks just show up and admonish others who are playing with ideas and exploring and having fun and genuinely trying things out.
I don’t need that energy in my life, regardless of how esteemed or how many volcano jungles someone has instantly mentally calculated.
I know you have your reasons. But I’m done with this conversation.
I really apologise if my comments made you feel insulted—especially as I’m someone you have respected. Of course that wasn’t my intention, and never is!
My intention was simply to give advice to Jethro (original poster) regarding their difficulties in using memory palaces for Mathematics. I was very confused to read your reply right now (expressing your offense) because my (first) comment was not at all in response to anything you had said (I had been in a rush and only read the two posts from Jethro before replying).
Now I re-read the thread I realize why you thought I was responding to you personally (you posted helpful details of how you have been successful using these techniques for Mathematics). So to be clear: my first comment was not in response to anything you had said. And my second one was only in response to your direct question.
So now I understand why you felt I was being confrontational, and specifically apologise for (a) not having read the entire thread to understand the full context; and (b) using more superlative language than was appropriate.
And thank you for your contribution directly recommending how best to use certain mnemonics for Mathematics, as that is useful advice for this thread, for anyone who wants to try out a mnemonic approach
Edit: and if I’m perceiving a lack of control in something in my life, it’s my time management right now during a busy period here in the UK. Which perhaps I should not manage by sharing advice on internet forums
I can see how that’s too abrasive / aggressive, but I interpret a completely different intention behind Daniel’s words. That’s both the flaw, and beauty of communication: so much of what we perceive is a reflection of our own minds.
I’m prone to using the same kind of hyperbolic speech and if those exact same words came from my fingers the intention behind them would be more like…
“Memorizing the symbols for all kinds of simple (proofs?) is probably going to waste your time and frustrate you, they’re a red herring. If you focus on learning what the algebra represents, instead of what is represented, something like -(ab) = a(-b) will be obvious.”
And I get that. Only reason it was hard for me to ‘read’ the math is being 20 years out of practice. I took a while to go “What does a variable crammed up against brackets even mean? Uhh… Multiply? Yes. Positive multiplied by negative is negative, right? Right. Right? 99% sure that’s right, but let’s check the calculator.” and so on until I could ‘read’ it again.
And I believe that’s all Daniel is trying to get across. If you can’t read the algebra, encoding the examples won’t fix that.
The neat thing is, even if encoding the examples turns out to be completely useless for learning math, it won’t be a waste of time and effort. Solving the problem will help grow Jethro’s skill in the art of memory!
It seems like a lot happened in my last visit, so let’s take this one at a time.
@Daniel_360 I do understand your point on why memorizing these more obvious equations are practically useless. They are obvious, when one understand the fundamental rules behind them.
That said, my reasoning for wanting to store it remains, for the following reasons:
1.) I am trying to store not just mathematics knowledge, but the specific books I am working with (excluding practice exercises). If I am to store the Lang textbooks I am working with, this equation must be in the palace somewhere.
2.) For someone like me, who essentially is learning maths “properly” from scratch, having these more obvious equations readily stored is helpful, as it provides me with training wheels as I internalize the rules that actually govern them.
I again agree that it would be more helpful to grok the essence of Algebra, but that’s what I’m trying to do here! I seek not to have a bunch of squiggles memorized but not understood, rather I hope to use these things, stored in my palaces, as the basis for understanding.
@beau2am Thank you for defending my desire to look into these ideas. If you have indeed abandoned this thread, I hope you know your insights have filled me with a renewed excitement for this project.
And thank you everyone else for your thoughts and input. Miscommunication happens, let’s just try to keep things civil and keep talking about this art we all share a passion for.
Late to the chat here, but what was meant in the first comment about using methods origin for studying the humanities? Is that a memory technique I am not aware of?
The origin of the method of loci as we know it comes from Greek antiquity, where it was used to memorize poetry, speeches, and history. Now these subjects were not labelled “Humanities” back then, but given that modern academia now categorizes them as such, it’s safe to say that the memory palace first came into being as a way to better remember the Humanities.
Source: I read it in Moonwalking with Einstein initially, and again in The Art of Memory
